Binion’s Horseshoe Hotel & Casino

“Decorated shed” buildings are typically generic-shaped structures with added signs and decorations that gesture toward their intended purposes, such as megastores, roadside hotels, or restaurants with large, ornate signage. Additional examples include big-box casinos, such as the Binion’s Horseshoe Hotel & Casino, the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino, and the now-defunct Stardust Resort & Casino.

Authors Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown, and Steve Izenour developed this terminology after studying the Las Vegas Strip during the late 1960s, inspired by the extravagant and overemphasized decoration of the city’s iconic skyline. The trio centered their analysis on two types of structures. First, the “decorated shed,” in which a basic-shaped building is embellished with an ornament, such as a sign pointing to its function. Second, the “duck,” in which the building itself expresses its function, often boldly. The trio compiled their research and findings into their book Learning from Las Vegas, which has become one of the most influential architectural books of its era and remains a definitive leading theoretical text on postmodernist architecture. If modernist architecture—which the authors of Learning from Las Vegas opposed—could be epitomized in a single phrase, it might be Mies van der Rohe’s succinct mantra of “Less is more.” In Venturi, Scott-Brown, and Izenour’s contrasting opinions, van der Rohe’s concept of “Less is more” was suitable only for architects, not for people, and the trio proposed a new phrase to sum up their ideology: “Less is a bore.”

Architects work closely with sign designers to bring their visions to life through signage that is designed with precision in mind. This might not always guarantee commercial success, but when the creative pairing is right, this collaboration can yield beautiful results. The Binion’s Horseshoe signage, for example, was part of a 1961 partnership between architects Wayne McAllister and William Wagner in collaboration with YESCO (Young Electric Sign Company) sign designers, resulting in one of the largest displays of neon in the world, featuring an estimated 8 miles of neon tubing and 30,000 lightbulbs.